West Indies go to Paradise as they search for change
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| Published on Friday, April 6, 2007 |
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By Simon Evans
PARADISE, Grenada (Reuters): World Cup hosts West Indies, stung by criticism after three successive defeats, returned to training on Thursday with Ramnaresh Sarwan saying it was time for the players to be honest with themselves.
After a three day break, Brian Lara's side played an in-house practice match near the village of Paradise on the Eastern coast as they began preparing for Tuesday's Super Eights match with South Africa -- which they must win to maintain any real hope of progress to the semi-finals.
Vice-captain Sarwan, one of the top order batsmen who have been unable to guide the team to a score above 250 in the entire tournament, said the criticism had been expected and the team now needed to give the right response on the field.
"Everyone is free to say their view and we are professionals and we have to come out and give a good performance," he told Reuters.
"But we have to be honest with ourselves as well - we haven't been playing that well and we need to get ourselves together.
"We have to improve all three departments of the game -- we need to bat better, bowl better and field better. It is something we have been working on and on Friday we have a very intense training session ahead of us.
"The people are very upset with us but it is a straightforward situation now where we have to win all three games, we need support, give our all for the next three games and hopefully we can do something outstanding."
ATTITUDE PROBLEM
But the Guyanese batsman rejected the argument, heard in several quarters since the team hit their losing streak that the players suffered from an attitude problem.
"Funnily enough when you are not doing well everyone tends to question your attitude and say you party a lot and stuff like that," he said.
"But we know what we have been doing in training and out on the field. We have been preparing ourselves and setting ourselves hard goals -- it is just a case of going out there and achieving it.
"Things have not been going well but we are quite confident we can do well now."
There had also been a negative reaction to the decision to give the players three days off after their defeat by Sri Lanka on Sunday but Sarwan said the free-time had been put to good use.
"It has been good, we are on the road regularly so it was really good to stay home for a couple of days, visit the family and stuff and get your mind away from the game a bit. Now we have a bit time to regroup and we are ready to go again," he said.
After facing South Africa at the new national stadium in Grenada on Tuesday, the West Indians take on Bangladesh and England in Barbados.
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